Andes Mint Chocolate Cookies

Baking season is here! I honestly cannot believe Thanksgiving is next week. Time flies! And we say that every year around this time. Where did summer go?! But this is my favorite time of year. It’s just so nice and cozy and I love spending time with family. So this is a great recipe to kick off the holidays. Basically a chocolate chip cookie but with Andes mints instead! SO DELICIOUS! There is a recipe on the back of the bag and I have made those before, but this one is slightly different and I like it better. The secret ingredient that I think ALL cookies need is corn starch. I’m not sure the science behind it or what it actually does. But the cookies just taste better and they have a better texture.

So, let’s go ahead and bake up some of these!!

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons corn starch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter at room temp
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups Andes Baking Chips (pictured above)

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, corn starch, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, cream together the butter and both sugars. Add egg and beat until well combined. Slowly beat in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in Andes baking chips. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Drop the chilled cookie dough by rounded spoonfulls onto the prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool for 1 minute on cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy! Store covered at room temperature.

Makes 2 dozen cookies

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Or squares. Whatever you want to call them. These are SOOOO good. Obviously. Peanut butter and chocolate is the best and is my husbands favorite. Every time I ask him what he wants me to bake next, his response is “something with peanut butter.” Ok, honey. You have spoken and I delivered.

I had to do SOMETHING for him. We just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary and he had flowers delivered to me (pictured in the background). So romantic! He doesn’t do that too often so when he does, I get so surprised. Good job, babe, good job ❤

I feel like this is a great bake for fall and even for Christmas. If you do a cookie exchange, definitely bake up a batch of these and add them to your dish! Yes, I’m already talking about Christmas and it’s not even Halloween yet, but us bakers like to plan, am I right?!

So… here we go. Your go to bake/dessert for the next 2.5 months 😉

What you will need:

13 x 9 pan, greased

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Dash of salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat butter and both sugars until smooth and creamy. Add in peanut butter and beat until combined and creamy. Add in vanilla and egg and beat until combined. Beat in flour mixture slowly until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour into your prepared pan and even out the top and edges. Bake for about 20 minutes. Cool completely before cutting. Enjoy!

Store covered at room temp or in the fridge.

Icebox Cake

Or Zebra Cake as my son and I call it. I got a recipe card for this in our last Hello Fresh delivery and of course I had to try it. Only 2 ingredients?! Come on! So easy, and a no bake dessert at that. Awesome!

Oh and Hello Fresh is a food delivery service just like Blue Apron (which we also use). They send you pre-portioned ingredients for 3 meals for you + 1 or 3 depending on family size. It’s great! Definitely check them out 🙂

Back to this cake… it really is so delicious and so easy to make but also very filling! I made my own whipped cream which is way better than Cool Whip in my opinion. And that’s also so easy. I will share the recipe in this blog post. So, before going in there are 2 things you need to know: first is that it needs to be refrigerated for at least 8 hours or overnight before serving. A great dessert to make the day before. Second is that you need a springform pan. So before attempting this recipe, make sure you have time and the correct pan.

Let’s get to it…

What you will need:

8 or 9 inch springform pan

3 cups cold heavy cream
6 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
(2) 9 oz packages of chocolate wafter cookies

I used these

To make your own whipped cream, in a cold metal (or glass) bowl, whisk all first 3 ingredients until stiff peaks form. It took me literally 5 or 6 minutes, my arm was hurting! It takes a while but it’s so worth it.

Once your whipped cream is made, evenly spread 1/2 cup on the bottom of the pan. Next, evenly place the wafer cookies on top of the whipped cream layer. Continue making layers like this making sure you end with whipped cream. I did 4 layers of cookies but could have probably done another one. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours. Tip: Feel free to break cookies the fill in any gaps.

When ready to serve, carefully remove sides of pan. Use a warm knife to cut and rinse off after every slice for smooth edges. Enjoy!

Store covered, in the fridge.

Mini Reece’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies

These may be my favorite cookie. Peanut butter and chocolate, a match made in heaven. The dough is so amazing and the finished bake is a chewy, peanut buttery goodness! Reece’s is my husbands favorite candy so when I bake, I try to please him as much as possible so he’ll eat what I make. Otherwise, I end up eating it all! Or I have to give some to friends/neighbors.

Anyway, these were a hit in our house! The recipe makes a lot of cookies but can easily be halved if you don’t want to make so much. So, go put on those aprons and let’s BAKE!

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Dash of salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup crushed mini Reece’s Pieces
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
More mini Reece’s Pieces for the tops of the cookies

Tip: To crush the Reece’s, just put in a ziplock bag and bang away with a rolling pin or the smooth side of a meat mallet.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat together the butter, oil and both sugars until you reach a nice, smooth consistency. Beat in both eggs until combined. Beat in vanilla. Slowly add in flour mixture and beat until just combined. Stir in crushed Reece’s and chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoons onto prepared cookie sheet. Press about 10 mini Reece’s pieces onto the tops of each cookie. Bake for about 8 minutes. I made pretty big cookies so I needed more like 9 minutes. Allow to cool for a minute on bake sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Store covered. Enjoy!

Triple Chocolate Chip Brownies

Yum!!! Milk chocolate, dark chocolate and white chocolate all come together in this chewy, delicious brownie! I found the bag of these morsels at Target. It’s from Nestle.

There’s the picture, so you can head on over to the store and get these bad boys (err good, delicious, tasty boys!). You can also obviously make cookies with these but when I wanted to bake I wanted to bake something quick. And cookies sometimes can take a while because you can only bake like 8 at a time. This is 18 minutes and you have an entire pan of brownies! So, here we go… start those ovens…

What you will need:

13 x 9 inch bake pan, greased

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 Tbsp water
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
10 oz. bag of Triple Chip Morsels

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, stir together the butter, sugar and water. Add eggs and stir until combined. Stir in vanilla. Stir in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in 1 cup of the chocolate chips. Pour evenly into the prepared pan.

Note: The batter is pretty thick. I had to grease my hands and press down to get the batter to the sides and corners of the pan.

Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips on top. Bake for 18-25 minutes. Allow to cool on wire rack before slicing and enjoying!

Chocolaty goodness!

Oreo Dirt Pudding

Thank you to all who serve our country! Happy Veterans Day! Today my son and I had a little fun and went to Target (our favorite store) and got some ingredients to make this Oreo dirt pudding. He was so excited! This is incredibly easy to make with no baking or heating involved so older kids can do it themselves and the younger ones can help every step of the way! Seriously, Liam (age 4 ) did everything himself with very little help from me.

I love recipes that are easy, you don’t need a lot of ingredients AND you can get creative. Add whatever you want, make a bigger one, make more smaller ones. Whatever! We used a vase that holds about 4 cups of water, but something that can hold 5 or 6 cups would be best. Or you can do 6-8 individual cups. So, let’s go have some fun and eat some delicious dessert!

What you will need:

Container, either 1 big one or smaller ones
2 cups milk (must be cows milk because almond or soy milk don’t firm pudding…?)
1 package chocolate instant pudding
1 (8) ounce container of Cool Whip
10 ounces crushed Original Oreos
Gummy worms

In a large bowl, whisk together the milk and pudding until smooth. Stir in the Cool Whip until everything is blended. Set aside for 5 minutes. This is when Liam and I crushed the Oreos.

The first layer is crushed Oreos, so make sure they cover the entire bottom of whatever container(s) you’re using. Then add the pudding mixture, then more Oreos and do as many layers as you want, just make sure you end with Oreos. Cover, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. Add the gummy worms just before serving.

Seriously, this is so fun to do with kids! Liam was so proud of himself because he was able to do it all. Stir, mix, pour, decorate! That’s it! So, have fun and enjoy 🙂

Halloween Cat Cookies

Need a fun, easy Halloween activity? Make these cute and delicious cookies! So simple to do, my 4 year old son had a blast helping me! Just don’t forget, cooking and baking with kids can get messy so bring your patience and have fun! I found this recipe on Pinterest and it is from landolakes.com.

Note: This recipe can easily be doubled!

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Dash of salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Round cookie cutter
Candy corn for eyes
I used Reese’s Mini’s for the nose but you really can use whatever round candy you want

Note: I know 1 1/2 eggs is odd, but Liam ended up dropping 1 and made it easy for me to measure out 🙂 An easier way is to whisk an egg and just pour in half and save the rest for an omelet or something.

Here’s Liam helping me!

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Slowly stir in flour mixture until just combined.

Divide mixture into 2 rounds and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take one of the dough rounds out of fridge. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to be about 1/4 inch thick. Place on prepared cookie sheet and decorate!

Here’s my goof having fun making cat faces 🙂

To make the whiskers, use the tines of a fork. Also, be sure not to press too hard with the candy. We’ve had a few eye balls melt because they were too close to the cookie sheet when baking.

Bake for 7-10 minutes. Allow to cool a minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

Spider Cookies

Oh, Halloween. I adore you! And I adore these cookies! Sometimes pumpkin recipes get a little overwhelming this time of year so I wanted to do a fun but still delicious cookie! Super simple, really just a typical chocolate chip cookie recipe but with white chocolate chips and reese’s pieces. Yum. So go ahead and make these for your Halloween gathering! They will not disappoint 😉

What you will need:

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup Reese’s Pieces (I used mini’s)
Big handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips (for spiders)
1 ounce chocolate (for spiders, I used Baker’s)

In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat together butter and both sugars until nice and smooth. Add vanilla and eggs and beat until combined. With a spatula, slowly fold in flour mixture until just combined. Do the same with white chocolate and Reese’s. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate while oven preheats.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Depending on how big your cookies are (anywhere from 2-3 tablespoons), bake from 9-11 minutes.

While cookie are baking, melt 1 ounce of chocolate. Baker’s chocolate is usually my chocolate of choice because I never have any problems using the directions on the box for melting it in the microwave. Place melted chocolate in a ziplock bag with a tiny hole cut out of the corner. Allow to cool a few minutes.

As soon as cookies come out of oven, gently press a chocolate chip wherever you want. This is the body of the spider. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. Use the melted chocolate for legs. This was my first time doing this so I will definitely be better the next time, but have fun with it! Make your spiders as cute or as big or little as you want.

Store in an airtight container for a few days! Happy Halloween and enjoy!

Chocolate Banana Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I know, I know! ANOTHER banana bread/cake recipe. Ugh. I have like 20 now up on this site. But they are all so good and I always have the ingredients on hand so banana bread or cake is what I make! This one is so easy and with the buttercream frosting it can be used as a birthday cake. So delicious, so moist, my stomach hurts because I literally just ate 3 pieces. And my pieces are huge.

For the buttercream, I actually don’t even measure out my ingredients anymore. I’ve made SO MANY freaking cakes within the past 2 years that I can honestly say I’ve become a pro at buttercream. However, I did list the ingredients and about how much you need for this cake. But you will see or come to realize that every buttercream is different depending on the person and what you want for each cake. If you have any questions, send me a comment!

So, without anymore typing/reading, go start your ovens and let’s bake a cake!

What you will need:

9 x 13 inch glass bake pan sprayed with nonstick spray

2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 large eggs
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the chocolate buttercream:

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 cups powdered sugar

For the cake, preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, whisk together the mashed bananas, eggs, water, milk, oil and vanilla. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and stir or whisk until combined. The mixture is quite wet.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 33-40 minutes. Mine was done right at 33 minutes. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting with the buttercream.

To make the buttercream: Beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add cocoa powder and milk and beat until combined. Slowly add in powdered sugar until you reach desired consistency. Note: You cannot beat buttercream too much! Keep beating until you get what you want!

Frost the cake when it has cooled completely. Store covered at room temperature. Enjoy!

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